


untitled sonata

by portions_forfox



Category: Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, F/F, One-Sided Attraction, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-01
Updated: 2016-08-01
Packaged: 2018-07-28 14:10:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7643938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/portions_forfox/pseuds/portions_forfox
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She had worn a pink gown.</p>
            </blockquote>





	untitled sonata

**Author's Note:**

> For @demoerin’s prompt at @margottenenbaum’s Wish Fulfillment ficathon over on LJ.

She had worn a pink gown, carnations or the frosting on the little cakes at the bakery in town. Tight around the waist, then an ever-increasing circle of circles for the skirt, big, round, dusting the floor with a circumference undreamed-of by the family mop. Lizzie had been fifteen. Jane was seventeen. The dance at Colonel Forster’s, said their mother, would be at seven; the last glass of brandy would be snatched from Mrs Bennet’s hand, said Mr Bennet, at eight. There would be soldiers there. Young soldiers.

Jane was nervous; she had said so plainly in the mirror while Lizzie stood behind, brushing her hair and her sister’s in turns. She was not clever around young men, though she did so enjoy their company. Lizzie laughed -- to Jane it was the sound of the water in the brook rounding the stones, the first few notes Mary plunked out on the piano before she settled into Beethoven's Third, wistful, playful, poetic, though Lizzie did not know this. 

“Oh, Jane,” she smiled, “I dare say you need not be clever.” This she did know. She touched a hand gently to Jane’s shoulder. In the mirror Jane was examining Jane. In the mirror so was Lizzie.

\- 

He had been handsome, this first love, the soldier, and after the dance for some months he wrote Jane letters whose clichés Lizzie saw while Jane did not but whose banality was made up for with passion and sincerity. Lizzie supposed he really did love her. Not as she did. He saw that Jane was beautiful and perhaps he saw that she was good, and now he supposed he would like a part of each. But no, he didn’t love like Lizzie. Not with her heart. 

At dinner that night, a curiosity -- an itch on Jane’s knee of which she was barely conscious. Lizzie was seated next to her. Up came the folds, pink chiffon for the pink of skin: with absent fingers Jane scratched her knee. Not before a glimpse of plain white drawers was offered to the world. Well, not the world. To Lizzie.


End file.
